Hello all, As many of you know, one of our own NCSU students, Zack Medford, is running for Raleigh City Council. Medford has started a wave of young adults in the Raleigh area taking an active role in citizenship. Many other college students in the Raleigh/Triangle area have filed for other offices such as School Board, City Council, and Mayor. However, many of the powers-that-be deem these active young adults ineligible to run in their respective races due to their age. Student Government and Zack Medford would like to put pressure on the North Carolina General Assembly to consider changing the laws that prohibit 18-20 year olds from holding office. WE NEED YOUR HELP! This coming THURSDAY AFTERNOON (Aug 7) at 4:00, we will in front of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY with LOCAL NEWS CREWS and local newspapers urging the GA to change the laws. We need a strong student/SG presence there. We will also be making signs for this occasion, so come early!!. If you can help in that department or if you plan to be there, please respond to either to myself or Zack at 834-6752.

"Kay_Yow:if I were you I'd do all I could to distance yourself from this effort to get the state's constitution amended. From everything I've read, you're trying to argue that you're within the scope of the current constitutional provision--talking at all about the issue of people <21 running for office seems to suggest that your initial argument lacks merit.

If I were you, I'd avoid this subject all together and focus on the argument you're trying to make, as well as, the issues that the City & District D are facing. Like packguy381 said, continuing to talk about your youth is hampering any campaign that you might have."

If you were waiting until the courts handed you a ruling, then it'd be one thing, but....otherwise, you're sinking your campaign here.

while i don't consider myself any kind of expert on campaigns (which those of you who were around last year would know is obvious ), but i know one thing - i don't trust most politicians. they do one thing to get elected, and then do something different when they get elected. first, i think zack has guts for just going out on a limb for something he believes in, and letting those who support him, support him and those who won't, won't. second, i have serious doubts that anyone who was going to decide against him b/c he support this amendment would have been in his corner either way.

I certainly wouldn't consider myself any type of expert on campaigns, elections or politics in general, but I do figure myself to be knowledgable enough to know when someone's shooting themselves in the foot.

I think zacktm's got two separate issues to work with here:1. From his website:

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"zacktm: The constitutional provision on ‘eligibility to elective office’ clearly sets a minimum age for office holders, but does not set a minimum age for candidates. As a matter of common sense, I believe that the drafters of the constitution were concerned about the age when a person assumes office, not his age on the day of the election."

2. If people who are at least 18 should be allowed to seek public office.

While I think his logic on #1 is a bit shaky (and apparently the BoE agrees), there's a possibility that his argument is legitimate. If he attaches his candidacy to #2, as this rally suggests, then the message is, "I'm not allowed to run, but I should be."

Why don't you just get your damn education, and then try to play politics? Even if you did get elected, I doubt anyone there would take you seriously. In fact, they may try to sabotage you simply for being there.

FYI- The House and Senate are both out of session. Thus, very few Legislators are present during the interim. Your message won't get the response you may be looking for since you'll basically be protesting to the Legislative Assistants and Interns (and a lot of Interns read these boards as is.).

I thought about the fact that the legislature's not in session right now, as well, but I dismissed it thinking that they mean this rally to be more of a symbolic stand than a lobbying day...then I re-read the story that was submitted

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"we will [meet] in front of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY with LOCAL NEWS CREWS and local newspapers urging the GA to change the laws. "

"i have serious doubts that anyone who was going to decide against him b/c he support this amendment would have been in his corner either way. "

no he just has a piss poor platform

im sure its been pointed out numerous times, but "NPO" is not something you can run on and win this District with. It doesnt even register with the constituents (read: non-students), and the students are too apathetic to do anything but bitch and moan.

nothing short of offering a beer special at a bar is going to get these kids to vote, and its going to take more than just students voting if he were to actually put up any sort of fight against kirkman, thus he would need to expand his platform to get votes from the non-student population, and generally the non-student populations needs are polar opposite to the student desires.

Zack I wish you the best of luck in your effort. However, I have some questions about your platform? Where do you plan to get the revenue to have a once-weekly pickup of recycling and park funding?? Increase taxes??? Cut current programs??? or are these just ideas that sound good for your platform??? And how do you plan to promote the downtown revitalization project??? These are all unanswered questions in your platform. If you want the citizens of this district to take you seriously, then you need to produce a platform that goes into DETAIL about your plans and tell us how you are going to fund these programs. I support you, but you need to address these concerns.

Just to clarify for some non-Raleigh natives (and to address some of [user]Whiteside[/user]'s questions).

Park Funding: The City Council just recently approved a bond issue for the October ballot to pay for park improvements. So when you're at the ballot box voting for City Council, you can vote in favor of a $47.2 million bond package to improve city greenways. (For more info, visit http://newsobserver.com/front/story/2754377p-2553236c.html)

Transportation: The City Council also voted to expand (at least temporarily) the UPASS system to provide free rides on CAT for city and state employees. UPASS already gave students free rides. One day, I hope that we'll turn the bus system into a completely free service (wishful thinking, I know).

Trash: It's hard to believe, but the city used to have trash pick-up twice a week. Thanks to some budget problems, the city has cut back to once a week pick-up...with that, the city has also included a weekly recycling program.

Kay_Yow it still doesn't address the issue of his platform not going into much detail. And FYI the majority of students @ NC State are non-Raleigh natives. So YOU ALL need to educate the BASE !!! DUH!!!!!!! and Zack still needs to address the issuse of his platform

I wasn't trying to address the lack of detail in zacktm's platform...my point was to illustrate that the sitting Council has already done a lot of the things on the platform and he needs to work to differentiate himself beyond his anti-NPO stance.

to all concerned - the event downtown today is not a lobbying event. it is a press conference. we will be meeting w/ legislators all of the wake county legislators at their offices next week to discuss their sponsorship and support of this change in eligibility.

Hey, real quick. About my platform, you have to understand that the election is still months away, we're going to elaborate about each and every point on the platform as time rolls by, most candidates havent even started campaigning what so ever. We're focusing on the age requirement for the time being, but soon that issue will be resolved and we can start focusing on sending our campaign messages to everyone possible. If you'd like to discuss any aspects of my platform though, I encourage you to do it on a new thread, not on this news alert. Talk to me any time about your concerns, i'm always open ears! Thanks guys!

I appreciate the interest in serving in a public office. However, I do not feel that the law requiring candidates be at least 21 years of age is unfair or should be changed. I encourage our would-be candidiate to use this opportunity to learn the system better, work with the party of his choice, as well as with local interest groups, and make himself known. Then later if he still would like to serve this city, he will have a stronger base of support.

Your time will come Zack, just not now, don't rush into politics, take notes, intern more, sit in on meetings, then go at it strong when you are out of college maybe in your late 20's, you will be a much better candidate by then.

Saying "I was really young, stupid and immature at the time" evidently doesn't work when "at the time" was 2 weeks before the campaign started.

Oh well. I guess it's back to Kirkman.

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"convienent for them to find that archived website the day of the vote, eh?"

yea, I was thinking the same thing, but that's politics!

screwed by google. heh. Incidentally, I really love the cached pictures in Google's image search. They keep stuff on file for months or years after the website has been taken down.

Also, I found a government site one time that continuously logged a large portion of the internet for archival purposes. It was pretty neat to see Yahoo's original page from 1995 again. Or "Anand's Hardware Page".

I think that it is great that an NCSU student wants to run for Student Council...but not this guy. I cannot believe that he would actually think that he has a chance. Let someone else from the University run that has a cleaner past and isn't so young.

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"He went to Enloe High School where he spent a large amount of his time working with a community service organization called Key Club."

Ooohhh...he was in Key Club in high school...just like everyone else who wasn't in an originization that was in Key Club just for their "college resume." This guy is an absolute joke. His website looks like an Abercrombie ad...not a seriously taken political website. He is embarrassing OUR university. We will not be taken seriously for several years now because of this. The fact that the N&O has put out an article on his past website just goes to show that if you want to be in politics you need to be squeeky clean from the start. Here's the text from the N&O article:"Thursday, August 14, 2003 12:00AM EDT

Council candidate entangled by Web

By J. ANDREW CURLISS, Staff Writer

RALEIGH -- A 20-year-old N.C. State University junior fighting for the right to run for a City Council seat maintained a personal Web site that contained sexually explicit material that debases women until weeks before he filed as a candidate.

Zack Medford, who is due in court today for a hearing on his lawsuit against the Wake County elections board, said he removed the explicit content in May while preparing to seek office and never intended for voters to see it.

"I took it down for a reason, really," he said. "It's inappropriate. It was something to show my friends. It was never actually for the public."

Now, his Web site is peppered with American flags and campaign platform statements. Late Tuesday, after an interview, he changed the address of the revised site (from http://www.iZack.com to http://www.votemedford.com ) to further distance himself from the older one, he said. He also took steps to erase any record of the old site, which until Wednesday was accessible from popular Internet search engines that store past Web pages.

"It was never something that was expected to get past the people who would know that it was a joke," he said. "It does bother me that you've seen this. You have to look at this, basically, through the view of college students."

Medford's candidacy in southwest Raleigh's District D is in doubt. The Wake elections board ruled this month that he can't run, pointing to the state constitution's requirement that candidates must be 21 years old. He argues that he is eligible to run on Oct. 7 because he turns 21 before the new council gets sworn in Dec. 3.

Medford, an Enloe High School graduate who has lived in Raleigh all his life, has been active in campus politics at NCSU and has written 40 columns for the student newspaper. But he supplemented those writings with other columns and postings on his personal Web site, including:

* Explicit descriptions of 33 hard-core sex acts, many of which harm and demean women. The list describes punching women in the face, nose or back of the head during sex; defecating on them; or "ramming" a woman's head against a wall.

A disclaimer Medford put at the end of the list says it was posted only to "discourage men from practicing these sexual activities."

Medford said he did not write the list but is responsible for publishing it. He apologized and said he regretted posting it.

"When you read it, it's rather shocking that people actually thought of this stuff," he said. "I have no harshness towards women. I think that men and women are beautiful."

* A diary of his 2002 spring break trip that describes meeting four women at the beach. He says when one woman ignored him, he wanted to fill her mouth with sand and urinate on her.

Medford said he was trying to be silly. "I truly, truly apologize for the content that's on there, and it's been taken down," he said. "I think it was a mistake. It was immature in many ways. Definitely."

* An advice column that describes breaking up with a past girlfriend by having someone douse her with vodka then throw a lit match in her hair. He wrote that he "laughed heartily" while urging a transvestite to urinate on the woman to put the fire out.

Medford said the column was made up and meant to be humorous. Asked if he thinks it actually is funny, he said, "Not at this point, clearly."

* Descriptions of drunken antics, though Medford, a member of the city's Substance Abuse Advisory Commission, does advise students to drink responsibly.

He acknowledged that, though underage, he has been a drinker. He said that he could not recall whether he has consumed alcohol since being appointed by council members to the substance abuse board July 1.

Medford said he wants to be a role model now and that he and his friends had "decided to grow up."

"Of course, I wish we had never done this in the first place," he said of the Web site. "But it's down, and it's not going to come back up."

Staff writer J. Andrew Curliss can be reached at 829-4840 or acurliss@newsobserver.com. "

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"* A diary of his 2002 spring break trip that describes meeting four women at the beach. He says when one woman ignored him, he wanted to fill her mouth with sand and urinate on her.

Medford said he was trying to be silly. "I truly, truly apologize for the content that's on there, and it's been taken down," he said. "I think it was a mistake. It was immature in many ways. Definitely.""

Trying to be silly?!?!?...what the hell is "silly" about that. That is just downright dispicable and rather disheartening that an NCSU student would have that on his website. This guy is in the same league of the guy that put pictures of naked young girls on his NCSU website a few years ago.

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"* An advice column that describes breaking up with a past girlfriend by having someone douse her with vodka then throw a lit match in her hair. He wrote that he "laughed heartily" while urging a transvestite to urinate on the woman to put the fire out.

Medford said the column was made up and meant to be humorous. Asked if he thinks it actually is funny, he said, "Not at this point, clearly.""

So...at one point this guy thought that this crap was funny. His sense of humor must be that of a six year old..."Look mommy...that guy's peeing on that woman...ha ha hah." Absolutely ridiculous.

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""Of course, I wish we had never done this in the first place," he said of the Web site. "But it's down, and it's not going to come back up.""

Yeah it's down...but it's really easy for the media to pick up on it. How stupid do you have to be to wait until two weeks before you announce to still associate yourself with that crap.

I think that the only way that someone from NCSU will be taken seriously as a political candidate is if they are a grad student. This guy has only been in school for two years...what does he really know about NCSU and the surrounding area?Another thing...the closest that this guy got to a "major" office in Student Government at State is"Campaign Manager for Dustin Choe's bid for Student Body President"Watch out...from Student Goverment campaign manager to City Council..yeah right.Makes me think...why didn't I run for City Council when I was in school...shoot...that was before Kirkman screwed every student at HIS alma mater. I have had a great disdain for Kirkman every since he has been in office. He is a slouch and a real big homer. Makes me upset to think that he graduated from OUR university. But. it looks as if he will have a cake walk again. Please, for the university's sake someone ask this guy to pull out of the race before every media outlet in this area hops on the fact that he had that FILTHY website. I work for a media outlet here in Raleigh, and I bet you any amount of money that we will be all over this story when the new week begins.

So can we get this off the front page now? This is now nothing but a big damn joke. WTG dipshit, you just made it even harder for a real candidate to run for office. I wonder why they have that age rule again....?